ReliefWeb

Executive Summary

Since 2014, the armed group Boko Haram has killed over 1,500 civilians in the Far North region of Cameroon, through a series of brutal and often indiscriminate attacks, in addition to its kidnapping of women and girls and its widespread looting and destruction of property. Amnesty International believes that Boko Haram has been engaged in a non-international armed conflict with the Cameroonian security forces since at least 2014.

Faced with such atrocities, Amnesty International believes that the Government of Cameroon has the right and duty to protect civilians from attack, yet must also respect the human rights of the population – and Cameroon’s obligations under national and international law – in doing so.

Reports published by Amnesty International in 2015 and 2016 highlighted how Cameroon’s authorities and security forces often failed to respect these obligations, committing human rights violations and crimes under international law on a significant scale, including with arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, enforced disappearances, torture and deaths in custody.

This report delves deeper, documenting the cases of 101 individuals who, between March 2013 and March 2017, were held incommunicado, tortured, and sometimes killed by Cameroonian security forces in facilities run by the military and intelligence services. Despite such practices being in violation of both national and international law, the use of torture in Cameroon’s fight against Boko Haram has become widespread and routine, and practiced with impunity. These constitute violations of international human rights law, as well as violations of international humanitarian law that amount to war crimes.

In all the cases investigated, victims of torture were individuals who had been accused – often with little or no evidence – of supporting Boko Haram. The majority were Cameroonian men aged 18 to 45 years old from the Far North region, with the Kanuri being the ethnic group most commonly targeted, but victims also included women, minors and people with physical and mental disabilities. In most cases, individuals were arrested either by soldiers from the regular Army, its elite Rapid Intervention Battalion (Bataillon d’Intervention Rapide, BIR), or by unidentified men in civilian clothes – always without a warrant, and rarely providing a reason for the arrest.

Once arrested, the individuals were taken either directly or indirectly to one of a number of unofficial detention facilities, in which they were held without any access to the outside world, before eventually being transferred to a formal prison to await trial. The average time spent detained incommunicado was 32 weeks, though some were held up to two and a half years, and it is in these facilities, during these periods, that torture was regularly carried out.

Victims of torture described at least 24 different methods used to beat, break and humiliate those subjected to it, usually with the aim of forcing confessions or providing information, but also to punish, terrify or intimidate. Most commonly, detainees were severely beaten with various objects including electric cables, machetes and wooden sticks, forced into stress positions and suspended from poles in ways that caused extreme pain in the joints and muscles, and subjected to drowning. Most victims were subjected to a mixture of these methods on multiple occasions, while also suffering inhumane conditions of detention and the deprivation of food, water and medical treatment. The severity of torture has led to many deaths, with 32 of the 101 victims saying that they had witnessed the deaths of others following torture.

The details of the torture techniques are chilling. In a common stress position described as ‘the goat’, the detainee’s arms and legs are tied together behind his back and he is left on the ground and beaten. In a common suspension technique known as ‘the swing’, the victim’s arms and legs are again tied behind his back, before he is lifted and suspended on a bar fitted between two poles or tripods, and further beaten. A number of victims bore the visible scars of this torture, with analysis by a forensic doctor providing Amnesty International additional corroboration of their testimonies. When provided details of such practices, a representative of the Minister of Defence denied it was torture, insisting it was merely “enhanced interrogation” (“exploitation approffondie”).

Many victims were able to describe where they were held, and using multiple accounts corroborated with satellite imagery and other photographic and video evidence, Amnesty International was able to identify 20 sites where people were subjected to torture. In particular, these included two sites where torture was carried out in 80 of the 101 cases documented: the BIR headquarters in Salak, near Maroua, and a facility in Yaoundé called ‘DGRE Lac’ run by the General Directorate of External Research (Direction Générale de la Recherche Extérieure, DGRE), not far from the National Assembly.
Amnesty International’s research also identified locations not usually associated with the security forces. Video evidence and witness testimonies identified, for example, a private residence in Kolofata and a school in Fotokol that have been used for illegal detention and torture.

Other facilities have also been used, including BIR bases in Kousseri, Mora, Kolofata, Fotokol, Waza and Ngaoundere, as well as another DGRE site near the military airport. Reports of torture in the ‘Secrétariat d'Etat à la Défense" (SED) and the base of the Presidential Guard in Yaoundé were also reported, as well as in stations of the police’s special rapid intervention units known as "Equipes spéciales d'intervention rapide" (ESIR) in Kousseri and Maroua, in addition to other police and gendarmerie stations across the country.

In recent years, the Cameroonian authorities and security forces had denied that individuals were detained in military bases such as Salak, yet in February 2017, the Minister of Communications and representatives of the Ministry of Defence told Amnesty International that individuals were indeed being held in Salak. The government officials claimed that that it was legal to do so, but under Cameroonian and international law, however, people must be taken directly to recognized police or gendarmerie stations and must have immediate access to their lawyer and family.

Research conducted by Amnesty International in conjunction with London-based agency Forensic Architecture also highlights the regular presence of military personnel from some of Cameroon’s international military partners at the BIR’s base at Salak, over the period where torture and incommunicado detention were routinely practiced. Although there is no evidence to suggest that any foreign military personnel from international partners were involved in the commission of torture , witness testimonies, analysis of photos and video gathered from social media and US military tendering documents all evidence the regular presence of US personnel at the Salak base, including some who happen to be accommodated within the camp. Amnesty International researchers also directly observed the presence of French personnel during one of their visits at Salak. The organisation is thus calling on the US and French governments to investigate the degree to which its personnel may have been aware of the widespread practices of illegal detention and torture at the base, and whether they took any measures to report it to their hierarchy and to the Cameroonian authorities.

Amnesty International believes that the evidence contained in this report provides a sufficient basis for Cameroonian authorities to initiate independent and impartial investigations into potential individual and command responsibility for crimes of torture, incommunicado detention and other human rights violations committed by various military officers and security service agents.

Indeed, many victims were also able to identify those that tortured them. While torture was usually directly carried out by mid-ranking BIR officers and DGRE agents, witness testimonies and analysis of the layout of the bases suggest that it would be improbable for high-ranking officers at Salak or DGRE Lac to be unaware of what was happening. In Salak, for example, over 50 victims were able to identify the room where they were most commonly tortured, which further analysis shows to be in the same building as offices used by senior officers, while cells where up to 70 people were detained at a time were located just 110 metres away from the same offices. Higher-ranking DGRE officers were also identified by multiple victims as being involved in interrogations and torture.

This report concludes that incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment of people held on suspicion of supporting Boko Haram are widespread and routine in BIR and DGRE-run facilities across Cameroon, as well as in other detention centres run by the Cameroonian security forces. The testimonies collected by Amnesty International from former detainees are disturbing and evoke a system designed to humiliate, degrade, and sometimes kill those trapped inside. These violations are committed in a climate of impunity. To Amnesty’s knowledge, there have been no investigations into these practices, nor efforts to prevent such occurrences and to prosecute and punish the perpetrators.

Amnesty International has always sought to discuss our findings with the Cameroonian authorities to incorporate their responses and discuss ways to prevent violations from being committed. In addition to requesting to meet government representatives during field research missions, and sharing our findings with officials ahead of the publication of our reports in 2015 and 2016, the main findings of this report were also sent in writing to the authorities on 20 April 2017. An Amnesty International delegation also travelled to Yaoundé between 20-26 May 2017 seeking to meet government representatives to discuss our report, yet unfortunately no representative agreed to meet, no written response was provided, and the authorities even banned an Amnesty International press conference and civil society event.

Amnesty International believes that the Government of Cameroon has the right and duty to protect citizens from the atrocities committed by Boko Haram, but that its efforts to protect civilians should respect Cameroon’s obligations under national law and international human rights and humanitarian law. Amnesty International also notes President Paul Biya’s commitments to ensure that efforts to combat Boko Haram be carried out in full respect of Cameroon’s international human rights obligations, and therefore calls on the Cameroonian authorities to, among others:

• Publicly order the security forces to end the practice of detaining and interrogating people outside of official detention sites, including BIR bases and DGRE facilities;

• End the practice of incommunicado detention, including those taking place on the premises of an officially recognized detention facility, and ensure all detainees can freely access a lawyer of their choice, their family and medical care;

• Grant independent international monitors, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), unhindered access to all persons deprived of their liberty, and allow them to carry out unannounced inspection visits to all detention facilities, including military bases and buildings operated by the secret services, to investigate and monitor conditions;

• Conduct prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of torture, incommunicado detention and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in all places of detention and ensure that guards, interrogators and other detention officials who are reasonably suspected of responsibility for the torture and ill-treatment of prisoners face disciplinary measures and criminal prosecution in fair trials before civilian courts without recourse to the death penalty.

Amnesty International also calls for action to be taken by Cameroon’s international partners, ensuring that human rights violations and crimes under international law including torture and incommunicado detention are prioritized in discussions with Cameroonian authorities, and that any military co-operation with Cameroon, including training or technical advice, does not contribute to the perpetration of human rights violations. This is especially the case for countries including France and the USA who have provided military assistance to Cameroon’s fight against Boko Haram, and who may have military personnel present on sites where torture is carried out.